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Suddenly Roberto began to speak. His voice was clear and steady, and I clutched at his words to drag myself above the surface of my terror. He touched on the charge that had been made against his wife–he did not say by whom–the foul rumor that had made itself heard on the eve of their first parting. Duty, he said, had sent him a double summons; to fight for his country and for his wife. He must clear his wife’s name before he was worthy to draw sword for Italy. There was no time to tame the slander before throttling it; he had to take the shortest way to its throat. At this point he looked at me and my soul shook. Then he turned to Andrea and Gemma.

“When you came to me with this rumor,” he said quietly, “you agreed to consider the family honor satisfied if I could induce Don Egidio to let me take his place and overhear my wife’s confession, and if that confession convinced me of her innocence. Was this the understanding?”

Andrea muttered something and Gemma tapped a sullen foot.

“After you had left,” Roberto continued, “I laid the case before Don Egidio and threw myself on his mercy.” He looked at me fixedly. “So strong was his faith in my wife’s innocence that for her sake he agreed to violate the sanctity of the confessional. I took his place.”

Marianna sobbed and crossed herself and a strange look flitted over Faustina’s face.

There was a moment’s pause; then Roberto, rising, walked across the room to his wife and took her by the hand.

“Your seat is beside me, Countess Siviano,” he said, and led her to the empty chair by his own.

Gemma started to her feet, but her husband pulled her down again.

“Jesus! Mary!” We heard Donna Marianna moan.

Roberto raised his wife’s hand to his lips. “You forgive me,” he said, “the means I took to defend you?” And turning to Andrea he added slowly: “I declare my wife innocent and my honor satisfied. You swear to stand by my decision?”

What Andrea stammered out, what hissing serpents of speech Gemma’s clinched teeth bit back, I never knew–for my eyes were on Faustina, and her face was a wonder to behold.

She had let herself be led across the room like a blind woman, and had listened without change of feature to her husband’s first words; but as he ceased her frozen gaze broke and her whole body seemed to melt against his breast. He put his arm out, but she slipped to his feet and Marianna hastened forward to raise her up. At that moment we heard the stroke of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count’s boat touch the landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, knocked warningly at the terrace window.

“No time to lose, excellency!” he cried.

Roberto turned and gripped my hand. “Pray for me,” he said low; and with a brief gesture to the others ran down the terrace to the boat.

Marianna was bathing Faustina with happy tears.

“Look up, dear! Think how soon he will come back! And there is the sunrise–see!”

Andrea and Gemma had slunk away like ghosts at cock-crow, and a red dawn stood over Milan.

* * * * *

If that sun rose red it set scarlet. It was the first of the Five Days in Milan–the Five Glorious Days, as they are called. Roberto reached the city just before the gates closed. So much we knew–little more. We heard of him in the Broletto (whence he must have escaped when the Austrians blew in the door) and in the Casa Vidiserti, with Casati, Cattaneo and the rest; but after the barricading began we could trace him only as having been seen here and there in the thick of the fighting, or tending the wounded under Bertani’s orders. His place, one would have said, was in the council-chamber, with the soberer heads; but that was an hour when every man gave his blood where it was most needed, and Cernuschi, Dandolo, Anfossi, della Porta fought shoulder to shoulder with students, artisans and peasants. Certain it is that he was seen on the fifth day; for among the volunteers who swarmed after Manara in his assault on the Porta Tosa was a servant of palazzo Siviano; and this fellow swore he had seen his master charge with Manara in the last assault–had watched him, sword in hand, press close to the gates, and then, as they swung open before the victorious dash of our men, had seen him drop and disappear in the inrushing tide of peasants that almost swept the little company off its feet. After that we heard nothing. There was savage work in Milan in those days, and more than one well-known figure lay lost among the heaps of dead hacked and disfeatured by Croat blades.